Systems and methods for providing community based catalogs and/or community based on-line services

ABSTRACT

A buying community is established by discerning customers having the same or similar business types. The business type of a customer may be discerned from a corporate, business, or other entity name that is associated with the customer. Once a buying community is established, behaviors of customers within that buying community are discerned. These behaviors may include product purchasing behaviors, on-line navigation behaviors, on-line searching behaviors, etc. The discerned behaviors of the customers within the buying community may then be used to provide catalogs customized for those members and/or on-line services customized for those members.

BACKGROUND

Systems and methods for providing customized information and servicesare known. For example, commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 7,266,516describes systems and methods for providing customized, electroniccatalogs and commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 7,313,536 describes systemsand methods for providing customized product recommendations. It is alsoknown to collect information, such as demographic information,firmagraphic information, historical purchasing information, etc., toprovide such customized catalogs, customized product recommendations,and/or other customized services.

SUMMARY

To provide community based catalogs and/or community based on-lineservices a buying community is established. Generally, the buyingcommunity is established by first discerning customers having the sameor similar business types. The business type of a target customer, e.g.,a current or potential customer, may be discerned from a corporate,business, or other entity name that is associated with the customer.Once a buying community is established, behaviors of customers withinthat buying community are discerned. These behaviors may include productpurchasing behaviors, on-line navigation behaviors, on-line searchingbehaviors, etc. The discerned behaviors of the customers within thebuying community may then be used to provide catalogs customized forthose members and/or on-line services customized for those members.

A better understanding of the objects, advantages, features, propertiesand relationships of the systems and methods described hereinafter willbe obtained from the following detailed description and accompanyingdrawings which set forth illustrative embodiments.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a better understanding of the systems and methods for providingcommunity based catalogs and/or community based on-line servicesdescribed hereinafter, reference may be had to preferred embodimentsshown in the following drawings in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary system in which theinventive concepts may be employed; and

FIG. 2 illustrates a flow chart diagram of an exemplary method forproviding delivery of goods to an ordering customer.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Turning to the drawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to likeelements, exemplary systems and methods for providing community basedcatalogs and/or community based on-line services are hereinafterdescribed. As illustrated in FIG. 1, an exemplary system in which thesubject inventive concepts may be employed includes a processing device20, illustrated in the exemplary form of a computer system, that isprovided with executable instructions to, for example, provide a meansfor a customer to access a web site via a computer system/server 68 andthereby browse goods offered for sale by a wholesaler, retailer, vender,etc., (collectively “wholesaler”) in particular goods set forth in acatalog or otherwise presented on-line in a manner that has beencustomized for that customer, purchase goods of interest, requestdelivery of goods, etc. Generally, the computer executable instructionsreside in program modules which may include routines, programs, objects,components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks orimplement particular abstract data types. Accordingly, those skilled inthe art will appreciate that the processing device 20 may be embodied inany device having the ability to execute instructions such as, by way ofexample, a personal computer, mainframe computer, personal-digitalassistant (PDA), cellular telephone, or the like. Furthermore, whiledescribed and illustrated in the context of a single processing device20, those skilled in the art will also appreciate that the various tasksdescribed hereinafter may be practiced in a distributed environmenthaving multiple processing devices linked via a local or wide-areanetwork whereby the executable instructions may be associated withand/or executed by one or more multiple processing devices.

For performing the various tasks in accordance with the executableinstructions, the processing device 20 preferably includes a processingunit 22 and a system memory 24 which may be linked via a bus 26. Withoutlimitation, the bus 26 may be a memory bus, a peripheral bus, and/or alocal bus using any of a variety of well known bus architectures. Asneeded for any particular purpose, the system memory 24 may include readonly memory (ROM) 28 and/or random access memory (RAM) 30. Additionalmemory devices may also be made accessible to the processing device 20by means of, for example, a hard disk drive interface 32, a magneticdisk drive interface 34, and/or an optical disk drive interface 36. Aswill be understood, these devices, which would be linked to the systembus 26, respectively allow for reading from and writing to a hard disk38, reading from or writing to a removable magnetic disk 40, and forreading from or writing to a removable optical disk 42, such as a CD/DVDROM or other optical media. The drive interfaces and their associatedcomputer-readable media allow for the nonvolatile storage of computerreadable instructions, data structures, program modules and other datafor the processing device 20. Those skilled in the art will furtherappreciate that other types of computer readable media that can storedata may be used for this same purpose. Examples of such media devicesinclude, but are not limited to, magnetic cassettes, flash memory cards,digital videodisks, Bernoulli cartridges, random access memories,nano-drives, memory sticks, and other read/write and/or read-onlymemories.

A number of program modules, i.e., computer executable instructions, maybe stored in one or more of the memory/media devices of the processingdevice 20. For example, a basic input/output system (BIOS) 44,containing the basic routines that help to transfer information betweenelements within the processing device 20, such as during start-up, maybe stored in ROM 28. Similarly, the RAM 30, hard drive 38, and/orperipheral memory devices may be used to store computer executableinstructions comprising an operating system 46, one or more applicationsprograms 48 (such as a Web browser), other program modules 50, and/orprogram data 52. Still further, computer-executable instructions may bedownloaded to the processing device 20 as needed, for example, via anetwork connection.

The customer may enter commands and information into the processingdevice 20 through input devices such as a keyboard 54 and/or a pointingdevice 56. While not illustrated, other input devices may include amicrophone, a joystick, a game pad, a scanner, etc. These and otherinput/output devices would typically be connected to the processing unit22 by means of an interface 58 which, in turn, would be coupled to thebus 26. Input devices may be connected to the processor 22 usinginterfaces such as, for example, a parallel port, game port, firewire,or a universal serial bus (USB). To view information from the processingdevice 20, a monitor 60 or other type of display device may also beconnected to the bus 26 via an interface, such as a video adapter 62. Inaddition to the monitor 60, the processing device 20 may also includeother peripheral output devices, not shown, such as speakers andprinters.

As further illustrated in FIG. 1, the processing device 20 may alsoutilize logical connections to one or more remote processing devices,such as the wholesaler system/server 68. The remote processing devicesmay have an associated data repository in which is stored data such ascustomer/company information, electronic catalog pages, etc. While theremote processing device 68 has been illustrated in the exemplary formof a server computer, it will be appreciated that the remote processingdevices 68 may be any type of device having processing capabilities. Assuch, it will again be appreciated that the remote processing device 68need not be implemented as a single device but may be implemented in amanner such that the tasks performed by the remote processing device 68are distributed to a plurality of processing devices linked through acommunication network

For performing tasks as needed, the remote processing device 68 andother processing devices illustrated in FIG. 1, such as publishersystem/server 90, may include many or all of the elements describedabove relative to the processing device 20. Communications between theprocessing device 20 and these additionally illustrated processingdevices may be exchanged via a further processing device, such a networkrouter, that is responsible for network routing. Communications with thenetwork router may be performed via a network interface component 73.Thus, within such a networked environment 12, e.g., the Internet, WorldWide Web, LAN, or other like type of wired or wireless network, it willbe appreciated that program modules depicted relative to the processingdevice 20, or portions thereof, may be stored in the memory storagedevice(s) of one or more of these additionally illustrated processingdevices.

As illustrated in FIG. 1 and as noted above, a customer generallyinteracts with wholesaler system/server 68 to browse an electroniccatalog of goods offered for sale by the wholesaler, to order/purchasegoods of interest, to request delivery of such goods, etc. In connectionwith the customer accessing the wholesaler system/server 68, thewholesaler system/server 68 may be used to collect customer informationthat may be further used to provide the customer with a customizedcatalog and/or customized on-line services. More particularly, thewholesaler system/server 68 may collect customer information such asbill-to address(es), ship-to address(es), credit limit(s), contactname(s), phone number(s), the name of the company, corporation, orentity (collectively “company name”) with which the customer isassociated, prior purchasing history, etc. Such information may beprovided directly by the customer, a wholesaler representative for thecustomer, or gleaned from prior transactions/interactions by thecustomer with the wholesaler system/server 68. As will be appreciated,such information may be stored within the data repository associatedwith the wholesaler system/server 68.

Information gathered for a particular customer may then be utilized toprepare or otherwise make available, for example on-line, a catalog ofproducts and/or services (collectively “products”) where the catalog ofproducts is customized for that customer. More particularly, a catalogof products may be customized for a customer by utilizing the companyname associated with the customer. In this regard, it is to beunderstood that a company name, in many cases, very accurately describesa type of business. For example, it can be assumed with a high degree ofcertainty that a company of the name “ABC Plumbing” is a plumbingbusiness, a company of the name “Vivorah's Bakery” is a bakery business,a company of the name “Lincoln Park Supermarket” is a grocery business,etc. Thus, with this knowledge, it is possible to group very specificbusinesses into a precise market segment, or community, to therebyprovide a catalog of products customized for customers within thatcommunity. It will also be appreciated that communities discerned inthis manner are likely to be very homogenous and, as such, will likelyshare behaviors and have very similar product needs. Yet further, itwill be appreciated that providing customizing catalogs with this degreeof community specificity is more likely to result in sales by thewholesaler as it is more likely that a customized catalog will includeproducts that are attractive to and/or needed by the customer to whichthe customized catalog is targeted. For example, a customer in thebakery business is likely to have very specific product needs whichproduct needs might be obscured in a more general catalog, such as ageneral catalog having all products sold by the wholesaler or even ageneral catalog having products tailored for a more generic industryclassification, such as food processing.

With reference to FIG. 2, a community specific catalog may be customizedfor a customer by first extracting from the data repository businesstype information that is within the company name information for thatcustomer. The business type information to be used in this process mayvary in level of detail and, accordingly, may be used as desired. Forexample, the company name information may include only one level ofbusiness type detail, such as “Bakery” in “Anita's Bakery,” or multiplelevels of business type detail, such as “Vineyard” and “Winery” in “NapaValley Vineyard and Winery.” Then, using the business type detail(s)extracted, the data repository is examined to determined what productshave been purchased in the past from the wholesaler by companies in thesame, or similar, business type—again discernable by using informationcontained within company name data and examining prior purchasinghistories of companies having a company name with the same, or similar,business type detail as the customer for which a customized, communitycatalog is being created. The prior purchasing histories considered maybe constrained to a predefined period of time, such as within the lastmonth, within the last year, etc., a predetermined period of time withina year, e.g., a season, a month, etc., or the like, a predeterminedperiod of time before or after an event, e.g., a snow storm, ahurricane, etc. Furthermore, a customized catalog for a community mayinclude all products that have been determined by the system to havebeen purchased from the wholesaler (within a time period if applicable)by companies determined to be within the relevant community, only asubset of the products so determined, e.g., products that meet apredetermined sales threshold such as having been sold X number of timeswithin the community, additional products, while not determined as beingpurchased by companies within the relevant community, are known to beoften sold-with the products so determined when considering othercustomers beyond the relevant community (such “sold-with” products beingidentified, for example, using the methods described in commonlyassigned U.S. Published Application No. 2005/0171860 or those describedin U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,317,722 and 6,064,980), and the like. Still further,the customized catalog may include products in addition to the productsdetermined in the above described method by merely aggregating pagesfrom an existing catalog, such as pages from the W.W. Grainger, Inc'scatalog, on which appear the products discerned to the purchased bycompanies within the relevant community.

The customized, community catalog may be further customized as desired.For example, if a customer's business type is discerned to be “vineyard”and “winery,” products to be included within the customized, communitycatalog may be limited to those purchased from the wholesaler by only“vineyard” type businesses, those purchased only by “winery” typebusinesses, those purchased by both “vineyard” type businesses and“winery” type businesses, or those purchased only by “vineyard andwinery” type businesses. Thus, it is seen that a business typeidentifier for a customer can be excluded from consideration whenestablishing a relevant, customized community catalog for that customer.By way of further example of such exclusion, a customer in the “heatingand plumbing” business type, e.g., “Fred's Heating and Plumbing,” maydesire to be provided with the relevant community catalog for the“heating and plumber” type community as opposed to being provided withthe relevant community catalog for either the “heating” type communityor the “plumbing” type community. Still further, by this example it willbe appreciated that the system and method may consider variations,synonyms, and related business types when determining relevant communityinclusion and/or purchasing activities. In this manner, company namessuch as “plumber,” “plumbing,” “plumbers,” “sewer,” “heating,” “septic,”and the like may all be deemed by the system to belong to the “heatingand plumbing” type business community.

Once a customer is discerned by the system as belonging to a communityand a relevant customized community catalog exists (or can be created)for that community, the customer may access an electronic version of thecatalog, receive a print version of the catalog, etc. The electronicversion of the customized community catalog can be viewed on line by,for example, accessing the wholesaler system/server 68 from a computingdevice 20. The electronic version of the customized community catalogmay be provided in any appropriate form. Still further, the electronicversion of the customized community catalog may be made available by thewholesaler for downloading to a computer 20 of the customer (or viadistribution on a storage media such as a CD, memory stick, or the like)for local access/printing by the customer. The customized communitycatalog may similarly be provided to a publisher system/server 90 forprinting and distribution through conventional means, such as mail, tothe customer. Still further, the customized community catalog may beprovided as a stand-alone catalog, e.g., as a mailer, magalog, etc., orincluded as a component part of a larger catalog. For example, acustomized community catalog may be included as a component part of thegeneral W.W. Grainger, Inc. catalog such as by being included in thefront, back, or its own subsection of the W.W. Grainger, Inc. catalog.The pages of the customized community catalog may also be arranged asdesired, for example by placing at the front of the customized catalogthose products most often purchased by companies within the relevantcommunity.

In a further embodiment of the system and method, the business type fora customer/user of the wholesaler system/server 68, again discerned fromthe company name information captured about that customer, may beutilized to improve on-line product search services. For example, usingthe methods discussed above, the business type of a customer may bediscerned and a relevant corpus of products identified for thatcustomer, i.e., products typically purchased by the relevant communityto which the customer belongs as indicated by their business name. Then,in response to a customer performing a general search for a product,such as a keyword, drill down, or other type of search for “hammers,”the system may present to the customer the search results with thehammers most often purchased by the relevant community to which thecustomer belongs emphasized. In this regard, the emphasis may beprovided by biasing those searched for products most often purchased bythe relevant community to a predefined location within the searchresults, such as at the top, by providing a ranking indicator with thesearch results, e.g., “this product purchased by 90% of your community,”by excluding from the search results those searched for products nottypically purchased by the relevant community, by highlighting thoseproducts within the search results that are typically purchased by therelevant community, or the like. This method may also be utilized tofilter product search results provided in response to the user searchingfor a product by means of a cross-reference, e.g., a user in the“plumbing” type business searching on a model no. “ABC123” may bepresented with search results that include only those productscross-referenced to “ABC123” that are also determined to be relevant tothe “plumbing” type community.

In the instance where searches are performed using on-line drill-downsearching services or on-line parametric searching services (asdisclosed in, for example, commonly assigned U.S. Published ApplicationNo. 2007/02066146 and U.S. Published Application No. 2006/0287986), thesubject system and method may be utilized to pre-filter options that aremade available to a customer based upon their discerned community andthe purchasing history of the relevant community. For example, if thecustomer is discerned to be in the “HVAC” business type community, whenthe user begins an on-line category drill-down search to find a product,the customer may be presented with only those categories,sub-categories, and ultimately products from which the HVAC businesstype community, collectively, has historically purchased. Similarly, ifthe customer is discerned to be in the “HVAC” business type community,when the user uses an on-line parametric search, i.e., a “selectionguide,” to find a product, the customer may be presented with only thoseparametric values that are relevant to products from which the HVACbusiness type community, collectively, has historically purchased. Aswith the process for creating customized community catalogs, it iscontemplated that a customer may have one or more relevant communitiesthat may be individually or collectively used to pre-filter options thatare made available to a customer in such on-line searches.

It will also be appreciated that the customized information provided toa customer, whether on-line or within a printed catalog, may reflect anarrangement of information that is preferred by the relevant community.In this regard, to the extent that product information is presented intables or is otherwise arranged such that product attribute informationis readily viewed for use in performing product comparisons, the productattribute information may be arranged in a manner that reflects itsdiscerned usefulness to the relevant community. By way of example,customer interactions with rearrangeable product attribute tables (suchas by dragging/dropping or otherwise repositioning tabular columns inwhich are maintained specific attribute information, such as size,power, etc.) may be tracked whereupon, through analysis of the frequencyof the interactions, it may be discerned that certain table arrangementsare desired for certain communities and these discerned arrangements maythen be reflected in customized catalogs as noted above.

In a yet further embodiment of the system and method, the business typefor a customer/user of the wholesaler system/server 68, again discernedfrom the company name information captured about that customer, may beutilized to improve on-line product recommendation services. Forexample, products recommended to a customer in the performance ofon-line activities, such as described in commonly assigned U.S.Published Application No. 2006/0036510, may be further filtered toensure that only products known to be sold within the relevant communityare included as recommended products.

In a still further embodiment of the system and method, the businesstype for a customer/user of the wholesaler system/server 68, againdiscerned from the company name information captured about thatcustomer, may be utilized to improve on-line product informationservices. In this regard, it is contemplated that users of the systemmay be provided with the ability to provide commentary, annotations,etc. for products, services, etc. offered by the wholesaler.Furthermore, such commentary, annotations, etc. may be specified to becommunity specific, for example by being designated as belonging to acommunity, by being assigned to a community based upon the identity ofthe provider of the commentary, etc., whereupon a customer accessing thewholesaler system can be exposed to the commentary, annotations, etc.that have been provided by their relevant community. In this example, itis to be appreciated that such commentary, annotations, etc. can bemapped to catalog pages (within the general catalog or a customcommunity catalog), to catalog page tables, to individual products, etc.without limitation. Thus, by this service, a customer in the “painter”business type viewing paint brush products might be exposed to (orotherwise be able to view) comments provide by the “painter” businesstype community that might address how the brush stands up to certainpaint applications while a customer in the “music and sound” businesstype community, when viewing the same paint brush products, might beexposed to (or otherwise be able to view) comments provided by the“music and sound” business type community that might address how thebrush stands up to use in cleaning keyboards.

In a yet further embodiment of the invention, a catalog customized for arelevant community may be utilized to stock a tool crib for a company.For example, a company starting out in the “airline” business, which mayhave no experience in tool crib stocking, may have their tool cribinitially stocked with the items that are found within the catalog thathas been customized as described hereinabove for the “airline” typebusiness. Similarly, a sales representative may utilize a customizedcatalog to familiarize themselves with the purchasing behaviors of thebuying communities that the sales representative commonly interactswith.

While specific embodiments of the invention have been described indetail, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that variousmodifications and alternatives to those details could be developed inlight of the overall teachings of the disclosure. For example, in theevent that the business type for a customer/user of the wholesalersystem/server 68 cannot be discerned from company name informationcaptured about that customer (or the customer is an anonymous user) thesystem may allow the customer/user or service representative for thecustomer/user to specify a community, such as from a list of communitiespreviously identified by or otherwise established within the system, andthis specified community may then be utilized to provide that customerwith the various service hereinabove described. Similarly, if the systemmaintains standard industrial classification (SIC) information forcustomers/users, the SIC information may be used in conjunction with orin lieu of the company name information to provide community customizedcatalogs and services as hereinabove described. The system may alsoprovide for a user/customer to select a community to thereby allow theuser/customer to take on one of multiple different personas, forexample, a centralized buyer for a large organization may desire to haveaccess to a “plumbing” business type customized catalog and/or servicesduring one on-line session when acting on behalf of one area of thecompany and have access to a “cleaning” business type customized catalogand/or services during another on-line session when acting on behalf ofanother area of the company. Furthermore, while community priorpurchasing history has been used in the examples above to discernproducts for creating customized community catalogs and providingcustomized on-line services, it is to be appreciated that othercommunity attributes, such as web pages visited, products searched for,etc., may be similarly used to discern products for creating customizedcommunity catalogs and for providing customized on-line services.Accordingly, the particular arrangement disclosed is meant to beillustrative only and not limiting as to the scope of the inventionwhich is to be given the full breadth of the appended claims and anyequivalents thereof.

All patents, patent applications, and other references cited within thisdocument are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.

1. A computer readable media embodied in a physical storage devicehaving stored thereon computer executable instructions for providing acatalog customized for a target customer of a wholesaler, the computerexecutable instructions performing steps comprising: extracting from adatabase information indicative of a business type detail for the targetcustomer of the wholesaler, wherein the information is identified fromcompany name information of the target customer; extracting from adatabase information indicative of a business type detail of multiplecustomers that are determined to be of the same or similar business typeof the target customer using the company name information; identifyingfrom prior purchasing histories of the multiple customers, productspurchased from the wholesaler by the multiple customers; aggregatinginformation for the products identified as purchased from the wholesalerby the multiple customers to form a customized catalog comprising theidentified products for the target customer; and providing the catalogcustomized for the target customer of the wholesaler to the targetcustomer.
 2. The computer readable media as recited in claim 1, whereininformation indicative of a business type for the target customer of thewholesaler comprises a standard industrial classification assigned tothe target customer of the wholesaler.
 3. The computer readable media asrecited in claim 1, wherein information indicative of a business typefor the target customer of the wholesaler comprises a company nameassociated with the target customer of the wholesaler.
 4. The computerreadable media as recited in claim 1, wherein the instructions providethe catalog customized for the business type for the target customer ofthe wholesaler indicated by the information extracted from the databaseto the target customer of the wholesaler in an electronic form.
 5. Thecomputer readable media as recited in claim 1, wherein the instructionscause the catalog customized for the business type for the targetcustomer of the wholesaler indicated by the information extracted fromthe database to be printed for provision to the target customer of thewholesaler.
 6. The computer readable media as recited in claim 5,wherein the instructions cause the catalog customized for the businesstype for the target customer of the wholesaler indicated by theinformation extracted from the database to be printed as an identifiableinsert for provision to the target customer of the wholesaler as a partof a general catalog.
 7. The computer readable media as recited in claim1, wherein identifying from prior purchasing histories productspurchased from the wholesaler by customers of the business type for thetarget customer of the wholesaler indicated by the information extractedfrom the database are limited to prior purchasing histories occurringwithin a predetermined period of time.
 8. The computer readable media asrecited in claim 3, wherein the instructions provide the catalogcustomized for the business type for the target customer of thewholesaler indicatd by the information extracted from the database tothe target customer of the wholesaler in an electronic form.
 9. Thecomputer readable media as recited in claim 3, wherein the instructionscause the catalog customized for the business type for the targetcustomer of the wholesaler indicated by the information extracted fromthe database to be printed for provision to the target customer of thewholesaler.
 10. The computer readable media as recited in claim 9,wherein the instructions cause the catalog customized for the businesstype for the target customer of the wholesaler indicated by theinformation extracted from the database to be printed as an identifiableinsert for provision to the target customer of the wholesaler as a partof a general catalog.
 11. The computer readable media as recited inclaim 3, wherein identifying from prior purchasing histories productspurchased from the wholesaler by customers of the business type for thetarget customer of the wholesaler indicated by the information extractedfrom the database are limited to prior purchasing histories occurringwithin a predetermined period of time.
 12. A computer readable mediaembodied in a physical storage device having stored thereon computerexecutable instructions for providing on-line services customized for atarget customer of a wholesaler, the instructions performing stepscomprising: receiving information indicative of a business type detailfor the target customer of the wholesaler, wherein the information isidentified from company name information of the target customer;receiving information indicative of a business type detail of multiplecustomers that are determined to be of the same or similar business typeof the target customer using the company name information; identifyingfrom prior purchasing histories of the multiple customers, productspurchased from the wholesaler by the multiple customers; and emphasizingwithin results of an on-line search performed by the target customer ofthe wholesaler, products meeting a search criteria provided by thetarget customer of the wholesaler and identified from prior purchasinghistories of the multiple customers determined to be of the same orsimilar business type.
 13. The computer readable media as recited inclaim 12, wherein information indicative of a business type for thetarget customer of the wholesaler comprises a standard industrialclassification assigned to the target customer of the wholesalerextracted from a database.
 14. The computer readable media as recited inclaim 12, wherein information indicative of a business type for thetarget customer of the wholesaler comprises a company name associatedwith the target customer of the wholesaler extracted from a database.15. The computer readable media as recited in claim 12, wherein theproducts are emphasized within the search result by being highlighted.16. The computer readable media as recited in claim 12, wherein theproducts are emphasized within the search result by being placed withina predetermined area of the search results.
 17. The computer readablemedia as recited in claim 12, wherein the products are emphasized withinthe search results by filtering from the search results any productswhich meet the search criteria but which fail to be included within theproducts identified as purchased from the wholesaler by customers of thebusiness type indicated by the received information.
 18. A computerreadable media embodied in a physical storage device having storedthereon computer executable instructions for providing on-line servicescustomized for a target customer of a wholesaler, comprising: receivinginformation indicative of a business type detail for the target customerof the wholesaler, wherein the information is identified from companyname information of the target customer; receiving informationindicative of a business type detail for multiple customers of thewholesaler that is determined to be of a similar or same business typeof the target customer; identifying from prior purchasing histories ofthe multiple customers, products purchased from the wholesaler bycustomers of the business type indicated by the received information;and filtering an interactive on-line search service, accessed by thetarget customer of the wholesaler, to remove selectable options tothereby prevent the interactive on-line search service from beinguseable by the target customer of the wholesaler to locate a productoutside of the products identified as purchased from the wholesaler bycustomers of the business type indicated by the received information.19. The computer readable media as recited in claim 18, whereininformation indicative of a business type for the target customer of thewholesaler comprises a standard industrial classification assigned tothe target customer of the wholesaler extracted from a database.
 20. Thecomputer readable media as recited in claim 18, wherein informationindicative a business type for the target customer of the wholesalercomprises a company name associated with the target customer of thewholesaler extracted from a database.
 21. The computer readable media asrecited in claim 18, wherein the interactive on-line search servicecomprises an on-line drill down product search tool.
 22. The computerreadable media as recited in claim 18, wherein the interactive on-linesearch service comprises an on-line product attribute selection guidesearch tool.